A Question of Coffee
by Silberias
Summary: Molly spends the night with John, and after a very short interlude with Sherlock over coffee, she and the detective are cuddled up with John for the morning. Jollock ficlet promptfill originally posted over on tumblr.


For GettingOverGreta over on tumblr, the prompt being Jollock with ace!Sherlock. I did my best here, I think. Yes. Basically Sherlock is kind of clueless about relationships and the people he cares about, but he's in this relationship with Molly. He knows he can't give her everything she wants from him, so he's long ago given the go-ahead for her to seek those things from other people. She chose John, and thus the fic follows.

Enjoy!

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Sherlock's double-take when Molly came down the stairs the next morning in John's robe was something out of an old silent film, one with Buster Keaton as the lead. She'd left John upstairs to sleep, though the groggy frown he'd given her was almost enough to keep her. But Sherlock's gaping-fish-face had to be dealt with first.

Molly knew that she needed to deal with this new development between herself and Sherlock alone, not have him and John posturing at each other. Because they would—because Sherlock would have it in his head that Molly was off-limits and she knew that in his mind John had always been off limits to anyone. She knew Sherlock would blow a gasket, but still took a deep breath to steady herself as Sherlock's face settled back to his normal expression after he'd figured something out.

She hadn't quite figured out how to start when Sherlock did it for her. after he had a bit of his coffee.

"So, was he any good?"

Molly choked on the breath she'd just taken. Sherlock patted his dressing gown for a pack of cigarettes and lit one up with a pleased expression on his face. Molly cleared her throat and sat down next to him on the couch, stealing his coffee on the way.

"Yes. Very." She wasn't going to lie, not about this. Sherlock nodded to himself, his eyebrow quirked just a little bit with some silent question to himself.

"Good. It would be a shame if your alternate wasn't…you know. I'm surprised at the choice, however."

Molly leaned over a bit to cuddle up to his side. Sherlock put his arm around her shoulders, his touch light and hesitant. They'd had this conversation in theory a long time ago—that he was able to tolerate sleeping in the same bed as someone, but much more than that he was completely uncomfortable with. He'd said, with hand-on-heart earnestness, that if Molly needed to turn to others for things he couldn't give her he understood. He wanted her to be happy.

Molly however wanted _everyone_ to be happy.

"John has been lonely since we've started seeing each other, though, Sherlock."

She took a sip of his coffee, rich and unaltered. She'd always loved Sherlock's coffee. It was her favorite part of spending a morning at Baker Street. Sherlock always woke up in the early hours of the morning and made it, though he usually then came back to his room and cuddled (to the best of his ability) up to her as she slept.

Sherlock was looking at her with just a smattering of confusion. But then his face cleared a bit with understanding. Molly smiled at him over the rim of his coffee cup as she stole a little more—he never let her keep his coffee for very long, but there was something in his heart that couldn't ever deprive someone of their caffeine.

"Would—would that be—would that be—be okay?" Molly leaned forward to put the coffee cup on the table and then curled up on his lap, threading her fingers through his hair. He was looking to her for confirmation, because he was truly lost when it came to things like this.

"Yes, if it's okay with you, Sherlock. As he'd say, it's all fine."

That made him smile a bit.

"But you, us—he—"

"I explained a little of our situation to him, Sherlock. He's not the kind to sleep with his best mate's girl just because she shows up with an offer. I'll tell you, he was pretty upset with me at first—accused me of using you and of being cruel, that I'd been spending too much time around you to be _that_ unfeeling."

"Let's go wake him, then, shall we? You grab his coffee and I'll go smooth things over a bit with him. Talk it out. We'll come back down here once we work it out, okay?"

Molly nodded and pecked a kiss to his cheek before getting up. Sherlock caught her had before she got very far though, weaving their fingers together as he looked up at her.

"Is it okay? Starting the same thing with him?" She squeezed his hand with a bit of a smile, and Sherlock returned the smile with a twitching one of his own. And then he was pulling on her hand as he stood up in a rush.

"Actually, scratch the coffee. You're coming up with me."

Molly followed him up the stairs, and closed the door behind her as Sherlock pounced over to the bed. John woke up flailing from the slight doze he'd gone into after she'd left to steal Sherlock's coffee.

"Sherlock—what—what are you doing you great mad idiot—"

"Hold still John, hold _still_."

"If you're going to attack me what am I supposed to do—off!"

"No. Molly, if you'd be so kind as to get over here as well." Molly crawled onto the bed and tucked herself in at John's free side. Sherlock was at the other, leaning half-over his flatmate and holding him down by the wrists. John was better at punching things than kicking them, it was the smarter of the two choices.

Once it became clear that he was 1) safe and 2) not getting away, John's body went a bit limp as he resigned himself to whatever madness was in Sherlock's head this morning. Molly put her arm around his chest to reassure him that whatever "madness" Sherlock had planned it was at least something she was in on and therefore not something actually MAD. It was also a silent way to tell him that he wasn't in trouble with his best friend for the night he'd spent with her.

"From what Molly's said she's elaborated to you on our situation." John nodded just a little, and Molly wondered if Sherlock even _understood_ what the lick of the lips meant let alone if her boyfriend _noticed_ it at all. She certainly noticed—she'd always gotten a bit off on seeing what turned other people on, how they showed it. It was why she adored it whenever Sherlock was on a case—people always consoled her on how distant he was when he was on them, but those were actually her favorite times to be around him.

"A bit. She has…a bit."

"And would you mind terribly to be in the same situation with me? You'll have each other, too…I hadn't realized, hadn't put it together." John smiled, and laughed just a bit. His tone was incredulous, and only more so after Sherlock let him go and laid down next to him. They all knew that that was as close to an apology as Sherlock was going to give them in the situation, and John was making the best of it as he always did.

They spent the morning in John's little bed which still smelled faintly of sex from the night before. Molly curled up between John and the wall, while Sherlock held her hand and explored the new avenue of kissing John. For all that Sherlock was unimpressed by sex—it was more uselessly boring than breathing to him, he said, and as it didn't bind him to life itself he was happy to forego it altogether—he greatly enjoyed kissing. He took to it slowly with John, learning everything there was to know. No one commented on the tears which occasionally fell from John's eyes, or the disbelieving soft chuckles he gave over to occasionally.

Just as Molly was starting to feel a bit neglected, John pushed Sherlock away and turned onto his side to hold her properly. He feathered a few kisses to her face and throat, running his hands up and down her sides. Behind them Sherlock muttered that his coffee was going to be all cold when he went back downstairs and there was no point to it now it was nearly midday.

John managed to not break out in giggling, but Molly couldn't hold them in. The doctor had an erection so fierce it was probably paining him and they had entirely different ideas of "coffee" going through their minds at the moment than Sherlock. He really was completely clueless. He didn't even ask after why they were giggling at all, just continuing on with his ranting.

"Oh bother it…I'll just have to make some more," he said, getting up in a huff. Just as he reached the door, though, he proved himself worthy of the title of _detective_. "Try not to make too much noise, it might bring Mrs. Hudson running and we wouldn't want that would we?" Molly felt herself turn scarlet, and she saw the flush creep up John's neck just as rapidly.

Sherlock's grin was wicked as he shut the door and pounded down the stairs.

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